We have some interesting stuff going on here when it comes to the nation's energy security. Just a few months ago Obama was blaming the Republicans for botching the Keysone XL oil pipeline deal.

“As the State Department made clear last month, the rushed and arbitrary deadline insisted on by congressional Republicans prevented a full assessment of the pipeline’s impact, especially the health and safety of the American people, as well as our environment,” Obama said in a prepared statement Wednesday.

“As a result, the secretary of State has recommended that the application be denied. And after reviewing the State Department’s report, I agree,” Obama added.

This time there is more pressure for the president to allow for the pipeline. The Republicans finally wised up and introduced a bill that would allow for the pipeline without presidential approval. Now the pressure is coming from Democrats not Republicans. So what's Obama's reasoning? To get to that you would have to look at Obama's Energy Secretary appointee who said this in 2008.

"Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe," Steven Chu, the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, told the Wall Street Journal in September.

Chu said he favors gradually ramping up gasoline taxes over 15 years to nudge consumers into buying cars that are more fuel efficient and homes which are closer to work. Chu spoke with The Wall Street Journal in September but the newspaper did not publish the gas tax comments until last seek, shortly after the Nobel-prize winning physicist had been identified as Obama’s nominee for Energy secretary.

Steven Chu wants to determine where people should live based on their job location. Chu also wants to increase the price of gas to herd people towards his energy goals. Just look at the DOE's website. Here is the mission statement.

The mission of the Energy Department is to ensure America’s security and prosperity by addressing its energy, environmental and nuclear challenges through transformative science and technology solutions.

So the mission statement for the Energy Department does not include energy security through existing means? Only "transformative science and technology solutions"? The department of energy mission statement tells you all you need to know. Gaining more energy through conventional means is NOT a goal for the Obama administration period.

The Energy Department is working to decrease U.S. dependence on oil, Secretary Steven Chu said Tuesday after a Republican lawmaker scolded him for his now-infamous 2008 comment that gas prices in the U.S. should be as high as in Europe.

DOE is working to promote alternatives such as biofuels and electric vehicles, Chu told House appropriators during a hearing on DOE’s budget.

“We agree there is great suffering when the price of gasoline increases in the United States, and so we are very concerned about this,” said Chu, speaking to the House Appropriations energy and water subcommittee. “As I have repeatedly said, in the Department of Energy, what we’re trying to do is diversify our energy supply for transportation so that we have cost-effective means.”

We have cost effective means now; the government is standing in the way of them, because they don't fit the agenda. This entire gas price debate is absurd. A majority of Democrats have been sternly behind every effort to block any increase in conventional energy production. Now the president himself has stood in the way.

Thursday’s squeaker of a Senate vote on the Keystone XL pipeline serves both as a warning to President Barack Obama that a majority of both houses of Congress supports the pipeline and as encouragement to Republicans to keep pushing the issue.

Obama had personally lobbied Senate Democrats with phone calls urging them to oppose an amendment to the highway bill that would fast-track the Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline. And as it turned out, he needed every bit of their help.

The 11 Democrats who crossed party lines to support the amendment were Max Baucus of Montana, Mark Begich of Alaska, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Jon Tester of Montana and Jim Webb of Virginia.

Landrieu said she was not among those getting a call from Obama. And she was not surprised to see 10 Democrats join with her to cross party lines.

So there it is plain and simple. Obama wants to be on both sides of an issue --again. First Obama says it's the Republicans fault the pipeline didn't get approved, then two months later Obama is making personal phone calls, trying to stop passage of the same bill.

There was finally some bipartisan support on energy production and Obama put a stop to it. I don't think he can win on this one.

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With all of the turmoil in the world a large number of people are now fixated on birth control. Ever since George Stephanopoulos asked Mitt Romney, "Governor Romney, do you believe that states have the right to ban contraception? Or is that trumped by a constitutional right to privacy?" Since that debate there's been these bizarre references to a Republican lead ban on contraception.

Now that Sandra Fluke has gone before a congressional committee, the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committe on women's health and contraception. I like how they added the "and contraception" to the end the committee name. Fluke testified that some of her fellow students at Georgetown University and other religiously affiliated institutions can barely afford contraception. She gives an example of a friend of hers, who does receive contraceptive coverage from Georgetown University because of a medically necessary condition, and says that her friend's case is rare. There is a policy in place at Georgetown University that allows for contraceptive coverage when medically necessary. So, her first example of a medically necessary usage of birth control (and it's denial) is a non-issue because her friend has contraceptive coverage. Then she goes on to say, "When you let university administrators or other employers rather than women and their doctors dictate who's medial needs are legitimate and who's are not; A women's health takes a back seat to a bureaucracy focused on policing a her body." This is absurd. The Affordable Care Act will put the federal government between a women and her doctor.

I wasn't aware of this but apparently more than half of the colleges and universities offer health insurance plans to their students. This USA Today article states, "plans range from $30 to $2,400, and the average premium is about $850, the GAO said." I wonder why this wasn't mentioned in her testimony. If these figures are correct, health insurance combined with the cost of contraceptives, at Georgetown University, could cost as much as $5550 for three years! That's more than $6,000 a year for three years if you include co-pay charges. I was able to find this out in just a few minutes, I wonder why that wasn't part of her testimony? While attending such a prestigious law university; Sandra Fluke might want to make a better case when standing in front of a congressional committee --and the entire country.

Here's the truth. This is a completely spur of the moment thing. Where were these contraceptive concerns during the health care debate? There was no sizable organized effort to promote contraception coverage during the push for health care reform. How is it that right now we hear about this? This entire contraception issue is fabricated.

The real focus of these people is to put Republicans on defense. With Republicans on defense a few things are accomplished. The Republican candidates look weak; they don't control the debate. Obama is not the focus of attention, neither is the economy, the price of gas --which keeps going up, the national debt or any other serious pressing issue. This entire issue is manufactured. Republicans need to point that out.

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It's MittCain!

Mitt Romney has a growing problem; Rick Santorum is making this more evident as time goes on. Romney has yet to excite the base of the Republican party. Santorum's recent rise in the polls is evidence of this. Santorum is in first place for Michigan. Apparently the money Romney has amassed is not helping him much.

I consider this upcoming race (next Tuesday) to be the most important for Romney. If Santorum wins Michigan it proves that Romney can't get the Republican base. Let me put it this way, every vote for Santorum is a vote for Obama and here's why. I think that Santorum voters have a greater dislike of Romney than they do a will to vote out Obama in 2012. That is to say that if Romney gets the nomination a lot of Santorum voters will just stay home for the general election, just like they did for McCain. I believe that Romney is McCain --Part Two.

The media has been trumpeting that Romney has the money and the organization to go up against Obama, but all of the money and organization can't get him in front of Santorum? I think that the Media is more scared of Santorum than they are Romney and that's why you are seeing the hit pieces on Santorum. It's simple; Santorum excites the Republican voter base. Romney's strong point is polling well with moderates, which means nothing if you don't already have the base. And like I pointed out in my piece about moderates, you can't attract people who don't know what they stand for. Moderates will be attracted by a strong showing in the polls and and general excitement for a particular candidate (they ride the wave). The media knows this and that's why you see so many polls with slanted questions to sway public opinion; it's the moderates they're going after. Moderates are followers, it's that simple. You gain moderates by attracting the people who influence them. There is no way to know who influences them, so sticking with the base makes the most since. Because Obama now has a track record to defend more people are leaning towards a Republican candidate, regardless of what the polls show, secure those people already looking in your direction and moderates will follow.

So, to sum it up. Moderates only help Romney when he's doing well. When he's not, they scatter in all directions. You attract moderates directly at the cost of the base. It's for this reason that the base is so important. Romney has an inability to convince the Republican base that he's a true Conservative. If or until he does, he'll remain the "First 'Second Choice' Candidate".

The "America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009" limits choice? It does if you are a Catholic. By now I'm sure that you have heard that the law mandates that Catholic institutions pay for birth control in their health plans. You can't have any government interfering with church beliefs. Wait a minute! Isn't religious freedom (i.e. freedom from government interference) in large part why this country was founded?

This is just the beginning of the "overstepping". I found something in the health care law that should raise eyebrows everywhere! I wrote about this on 08/13/2009 before the health care bill became law. Educate yourself; this might help more people to understand what the "America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009" is really designed to do. When you understand how the bill is designed to work, you'll understand how any exemptions to the law are meaningless.

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A few years ago I did a post about global warming. I pointed out the gaps in logic which I could see in this consensus driven "science". It seems that I couldn't have been too far off the mark because some scientists are starting to back me up, check out Cycle 25.

Pal Brekke, senior adviser at the Norwegian Space Centre, said some scientists found the importance of water cycles difficult to accept, because doing so means admitting that the oceans – not CO2 – caused much of the global warming between 1970 and 1997.

Why would scientists have and issue with something that doesn't support their hypothesis? That's the purpose of science is to find truth. Are the people pushing CO2 as the cause of Global Warming "real" scientists?

The supposed ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming is facing an inconvenient challenge after the release of new temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years.

The figures suggest that we could even be heading for a mini ice age to rival the 70-year temperature drop that saw frost fairs held on the Thames in the 17th Century.

Based on readings from more than 30,000 measuring stations, the data was issued last week without fanfare by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit. It confirms that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997.

The East Anglia Climatic Research Unit consists of the same clowns whose emails were leaked showing that they doctored temperature readings to make it appear as if there were temperature increases when in fact there weren't. They were petitioned to release the raw data from which their predictions were made. It looks like they finally have; what do we see? We see that the data suggested the exact opposite of what we were told!

Meanwhile, leading climate scientists yesterday told The Mail on Sunday that, after emitting unusually high levels of energy throughout the 20th Century, the sun is now heading towards a ‘grand minimum’ in its output, threatening cold summers, bitter winters and a shortening of the season available for growing food.

Solar output goes through 11-year cycles, with high numbers of sunspots seen at their peak.

We are now at what should be the peak of what scientists call ‘Cycle 24’ – which is why last week’s solar storm resulted in sightings of the aurora borealis further south than usual. But sunspot numbers are running at less than half those seen during cycle peaks in the 20th Century.

Analysis by experts at NASA and the University of Arizona – derived from magnetic-field measurements 120,000 miles beneath the sun’s surface – suggest that Cycle 25, whose peak is due in 2022, will be a great deal weaker still.

Anyone who believes that the sun plays a minor role in this planet's climate is denying reality. What happens at night? The sun goes down and so does the temperature (with the exception of a warm front). Why do seasons change? Because the earth tilts on its axis causing sun to reach the surface at an increased angle (more radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere and the planet's magnetic field). Why is it colder at the north and south poles? This can easily be observed.

Dr Nicola Scafetta, of Duke University in North Carolina, is the author of several papers that argue the Met Office climate models show there should have been ‘steady warming from 2000 until now’.

‘If temperatures continue to stay flat or start to cool again, the divergence between the models and recorded data will eventually become so great that the whole scientific community will question the current theories,’ he said.

He believes that as the Met Office model attaches much greater significance to CO2 than to the sun, it was bound to conclude that there would not be cooling. ‘The real issue is whether the model itself is accurate,’ Dr Scafetta said. Meanwhile, one of America’s most eminent climate experts, Professor Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology, said she found the Met Office’s confident prediction of a ‘negligible’ impact difficult to understand.

‘The responsible thing to do would be to accept the fact that the models may have severe shortcomings when it comes to the influence of the sun,’ said Professor Curry. As for the warming pause, she said that many scientists ‘are not surprised’.

I agree; Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs are not going to cause a change in climate, neither will reducing cow emissions. There is absolutely no reason to pass legislation in an attempt to control the climate. Climate change legislation is absurd and is designed to slow economic growth in the U.S. and the rest of the developed world. I will cover this in depth later, for now, the link above is my source material.

Don't fall for it.

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